Lincoln Park Zoo's Hired Gun Battles Unwanted Visitors

A Change Of Season Brings A New Kind Of Vermin And Challenge. Enter Jose `Chino' Vargas, Exterminator For 6 Years And A One-man Pest Patrol.

October 24, 1995|By Stephen Lee, Tribune Staff Writer.

Lincoln Park Zoo officials can heave a sigh of relief that one of their biggest pest-control problems ever-swarms of flies so massive during the summer heat wave that some zoo residents could not go on display-is fading into memory with the arrival of cool weather.

Sorry, Bambi.

But that's not to say that the little-discussed but ever-present problem of controlling all the live creatures that are attracted to the zoo's star creatures is ever far from the official mind.

In fall and winter, the problem simply becomes a ground battle rather than an air war. Even now the zoo's full-time exterminator is plotting his maneuvers, as insects give way to rodents and wild animals, which seek out the zoo as one of the few possible safe havens.

With buildings kept warm and food and fresh water readily available for the more socially acceptable animals, a zoo is one of the most attractive destinations for any pest-and it easily beats scrounging through garbage cans covered by snow.

Enter Jose "Chino" Vargas, the zoo's exterminator for the past six years.

After all, the zoo's insect-eating reptiles and birds can do only so much by themselves, and they're not much help during the winter and against wild animals.

Vargas, 40, has kept the zoo as free as possible from the rats, roaches and other pests that plague the apes, zebras and birds that the zoo's 4 million visitors actually come to see annually. The zoo may never be perfectly pest-free, he concedes, but that's part of the challenge of his job.

"I thought when I came here I was going to eliminate all the problems here, but it ain't sweet roses. There's always problems here. There's always something going around," Vargas said. "The environment's the right one for insects and rodents, and there's lots of crevices for them to enter. I wish I could get rid of all of them, but that's not realistic."

The problem was getting out of hand when Vargas first came to Lincoln Park after 17 years of pest control in the private sector. Rats and mice could be seen everywhere, from the great apes' house to the public walkways. The pests posed health risks as potential disease-carriers, and they didn't impress the viewing public much either.

Through careful studies of the pests and application of technique, Vargas has regained control of the situation.

"We haven't seen rodents, period, for several years," said Cathy Maurer, lead keeper of the great apes. "They used to be a real problem. They're really more of a rarity now since Chino's basically taken care of it."

Brookfield Zoo handles its pest problem differently. Rather than maintaining a permanent full-time exterminator like Vargas, it brings in outside help periodically.

Overall, zoos are "absolutely" more of a challenge to control than an office building or even a farm, said Greg Baumann of the Virginia-based National Pest Control Association. Because the zoo is an open environment with a fluid human population, exterminators cannot entirely control it and must work around this limitation, he said.

Moreover, the threshold of acceptable pests is much lower in an urban tourist location like a zoo, Baumann said. One rat or cockroach is just part of everyday life when it's seen on the farm, but it becomes a crisis when it's lounging by a zoo's refreshment stand.

"In a zoo, there's a different challenge every day," Baumann said.

Vargas' weapons and methods of choice depend on which pests are the problem and which animals the pests are bothering. For example, he cannot use insecticide in the bird house since birds might eat the poisoned pests and get sick themselves.

He can choose between poisons, such as the ominous-sounding "giant destroyer," gases or just simple traps. He can fill up cinder blocks to prevent entrances and footholds for the pests, use his bait gun to cover knotted ropes with cockroach poison or leave poison in special time capsules around the outside perimeter to eliminate unwanted intruders.

"It pushes you to think," Vargas said. "The main part of controlling the problem is learning their habits. That eliminates 75 to 90 percent of the problem right there."

Even so, not all of Vargas' recommendations have been followed up by zoo officials.

"I've recommended putting diapers on all the animals," he chuckled, "but they don't want to take my advice."